Bob And Roberta Smith
Patrick Brill paints slogans in a unique brightly coloured lettering
style on banners and discarded boards of wood and exhibits them in
galleries of contemporary art across the world. The slogans are
usually humorous musing on art, politics, popular culture, Britain and
the world in general and they often support his activist campaigns,
such as his 2002 amnesty on bad art at Perogi Gallery, New York. A
recent example of his gift for merging art & politics was illustrated
in the exhibition Peace Camp. Bob & Roberta Smith took part in and
curated the show held at The Brick Lane Gallery - the show & programme
of events explored artists perceptions on Peace. The exhibition
featured over 100 artists including Gavin Turk, Rebecca Taber,
Wolfgang Tillmans, Abby Jackson and Seb Patene.
Noted for sign painting, Bob and Roberta Smith also make sculpture
using cement, as in his 2005 Cement Soup Kitchen at Beaconsfield
Gallery, London.
Patrick Brill grew attracted to postures of amateurism and failure.
His more recent work has suggested an interest in the utopian impulse
of art as an agent for social change, although this often seems hedged
with doubt or irony. Patrick Brill also performs music, often with a
group known as The Ken Ardley Playboys. Brill also hosts The Bob &
Roberta Smith Radio Show called MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MUSIC which is on
Resonance FM.
In March 2005 Bob and Roberta Smith was commissioned to act as curator
on a series of five public art projects in the Thames Gateway area of
Essex. The projects were collectively named Art U Need and were
documented in a diary-format book by Smith in 2007.
A sculpture proposed by Bob and Roberta Smith was shortlisted for the
fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London.
Bob and Roberta Smith will be having a solo show at Hales Gallery in April 2008
A Major Solo exhibition of work was held at The Baltic in Gateshead in
2005/2006 "Help Build The Ruins of Democracy".
Recent exhibitions: Fourth Plinth, The National Gallery, London 2008,
The Beautiful Poetry of Bob and Roberta Smith, Hales Gallery, London
Make Your Own Damn Art, Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston, UK, Should I
Stay Or Should I Go? (Dilemmas For Margate), Margate High Street,
Turner Contemporary 2005/06. The Mobile Reality Creator, Compton
Verney 2003. Its not easy being a famous Artist, Galerie Praz
Delavallade, Paris,France 2002
Useless men and Stupid Women, Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London,
UK.Bunch of Cowards, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, UK.The New York
Art Amnesty, Pierogi 2000, New York, USA. The Art Amnesty, Deptford X,
London, UK
Bob and Roberta Smith
"fucking dump" 78 by 38 inches giclee print on Hanhemuhle rag 2008